Spider Counting Book

Preschoolers love creepy, crawly things and spiders are no exception. Sing the song the "The Incy Wincy Spider." Tell children spiders are not insects, but rather arachnids with eight legs and explain. Discuss spiders and webs, and show pictures. Tell children they are going to make a spider book. Children will practice counting while making the "Spider Counting Book," which can be downloaded from the media gallery.

Materials:

Silver Glitter

Glue

Copy of the book

Black paint in small containers

Stapler

Black crayon

How to Make:

The teacher will print out a copy of the book pages for each child. Give each student a copy of the printed book, a container of black paint, silver glitter, glue and a black crayon. Read the book with students. Instruct preschoolers to create the cover of the book by outlining the spider web with glue and sprinkling with silver glitter. Read each page and finger paint the correct number of spiders on each page using the black paint. Draw eight legs on each spider with a black crayon. When the book pages are dry, the teacher will staple the pages together. Practice reading the book together.

Bushels of Apples File Folder Game

Apples are a popular fall theme for preschoolers and word families are used in preschool to help children associate specific word blends. Put them both together and kids have a fun, file folder game that will reinforce important language skills.

Materials:

Six die cut basket shapes

Several die cut apple shapes

Manila file folder

Glue

How to Make:

The teacher will choose six, word families to use with the Bushels of Apples file folder game. The teacher will die cut six baskets, laminate them and glue to a manila folder. Word family basket may include –ig,-at- -ug, -an,-ap and og. Use die cut apples or print and cut-out several apples and laminate them. Write a word on the apples that will fit on the corresponding word family basket. Examples include “hat," “bat," “tan," and “pig." Preschoolers will read the words and place the apples in the correct basket.

Colorful Corn Collage

Children love popcorn and fall is a great time to teach children that popcorn comes from corn. Discuss different things that are made from corn such as popcorn, canned corn, corn syrup and cereal. Ask children what their favorite flavor of popcorn is. Introduce the students to the popcorn poem.

Popcorn

Put the popcorn in the microwave and listen for the pop:

We know these little kernels are really getting hot.

When the kernels start to hop we hear pop, pop, Pop!

We take the bag out, add a little salt, and shake, shake, shake with all our might

Now we have a yummy snack to nibble on tonight!

By Lisa King

After rehearsing the poem a few times tell children they are going to use different colors of popcorn kernels to practice sorting and counting that will end in a beautiful corn craft.

Materials:

Bag of different colors of popcorn kernels

Corn cut-out

Green crayon

Glue

What to do:

Provide children with a handful of colored popcorn kernels, and a corn cut-out. Children will sort their kernels by color and count the kernels in each group. Instruct students to color the corn husk with the green crayon, place glue on the corn, and sprinkle with the colored kernels. Transfer these beautiful corn crafts into a fall bulletin board.

Fly Away Crow

Autumn is the perfect time to engage preschoolers in a scarecrow counting activity. Scarecrows are a symbol of fall and the harvest season. Children love these silly guys made of hay. Tell students, the farmer puts a scarecrow in the field to keep crows, raccoons, deer and other animals from eating the crops. Children will be moving and counting while pretending to be scarecrows and crows.

Students will stand in a circle and sing the song. The teacher will pick one student to be the scarecrow. The teacher will announce the number that will be used in the song ahead of time. When the number is called the scarecrow will touch the correct number of children and they will pretend to be crows and fly to the other side of the room.

Scarecrow Song (I'm a Little Teapot)

I'm a floppy scarecrow made of hay.

Standing in the cornfield to scare the crows away.

I wave my floppy arms and shout real loud,

and (one, two, three etc.) little crows fly up in the clouds.

by, Lisa King

Additional Autumn Activities

This fall make your classroom smell as good as it looks with a very "appilicious," craft. Print out apples with a leaf attached from white card stock paper. Students will spread glue on the apple and sprinkle split green peas on leaves and apple Kool-Aid on the apple or mix the Kool-Aid in with red paint. After the crafts are dry hang them from the ceiling for a truly "appeeling" aroma. There are so many different autumn activities for preschoolers that will make this fall simply "spooktacular."